As times get lean for alternative newsweeklys, their penchant to dispose of any and all journalistic class, fact-based reporting, or positive counterpoints to their dubious assertions goes out the window in lieu of mercilessly ripping into entire segments of artists without a single word of objectivity or credit where credit is due for the express purpose to generate clicks. At one point this latest piece sums up all Texas Music as “…just a clusterfuck of bullshit.” We saw this in late March when L.A. Weekly took to task a slew of Americana artists that including Jason Isbell and Lucinda Williams, listing off each artist’s negative points without a word of the accomplishments in their careers.

The latest is a piece from Ft. Worth Weekly called “What Happened The Texas Music?“—a worthless, at times factually incorrect, and incorrigible hit piece on Texas Music blathered out by curmudgeons with a bone to pick with all the young whipper snappers and their party music, exploiting a tiny fraction of truth to espouse platitudes and certainties about a scene that has much more quality and diversity than this assholic version of events is willing to give credit to.

“A New York guy killed Texas Music,” is how this piece written anonymously by the Ft. Worth Weekly staff starts off, slamming Jerry Jeff Walker while protecting the author so he or she doesn’t get shit all over via social media like they probably deserve.

First off, Jerry Jeff Walker didn’t kill Texas Music. He is one of the seminal people who helped invent it. And if Ft. Worth Weekly had dusted off their copy of Jan Reid’s Texas Music magnum opus, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, they would understand that if it wasn’t for Jerry Jeff, there would be no scene in Texas for Willie Nelson and other latecomers in the mid and late 70’s to use as a slingshot to superstardom.

In later years did Jerry Jeff Walker morph into a drunken country rock buffoon, flying off the handle in silly songs until he was nothing more than a shell of his “Mr. Bojangles” past and a caricature of himself? Of course he did. But to put the death of an entire region’s music on the man who was personally responsible for breathing life into its lungs because it’s a bellicose way to start off your badly-rationalized smear piece is beyond all. Jerry Jeff Walker spiraled completely out of control in the mid 70’s, and that’s one of the reasons we loved him.

The article goes on to say that Texas Music eventually devolved into nothing more than drinking and party songs, and that’s where it sits today, blaming among others, Pat Green (who probably deserves it to some extent) and Robert Earl Keen for this systemic devolution. It’s shepherded to its spurious conclusions by a cast of three artists with Ft. Worth ties: 70-year-old Amos Staggs, 69-year-old Earl Musick, and 34-year-old Joey Green, who works as a songwriter now in Nashville. They each take turns complaining about all the younguns and their party music, and how the Texas music charts have become nothing more than a toilet bowl of bad songs.

I’m sorry if you have a 17-year-old Kevin Fowler CD stuck in your car’s dash, and that’s where your reality tunnel for the entire Texas country music scene begins and ends. But don’t fuck off an entire segment of music just because you’re too lazy to look for the quality. Is there shit out there in the Texas Music scene, and inglorious party hearty blowhards that are doing their best to screw it all up for the rest of us? Of course there are. Take a look at the hijinks of Sam Riggs at the Larry Joe Taylor Festival a few months ago just south of Ft. Worth in Stephenville. There are mounds of worthless artists and music, and plenty of managers and booking agents to help them perpetrate their filth on the good citizens of Texas and beyond.

But that’s all the more reason it is imperative on periodicals such as the Ft. Worth Weekly to help the public sift through the garbage and find the best stuff. I’m actually all for naming names and weeding the Texas Music garden of all the godawful music that has sprouted up recently, and really has always been boiling under the surface in Texas Music as the Ft. Worth Weekly article rightly points out. But crikey, don’t through out the proverbial baby with the proverbial bath water.

Have you ever heard of the Turnpike Troubadours? Have you taken a listen to the latest record from Dalton Domino called Corners, or Jason Eady’s self-titled latest (who also happens to be from Ft. Worth)? Did you behold the power of John Baumann’s “Old Stone Church” before settling on the idea that Texas Music is all party bullshit? And those are just some very recent examples.

Surprisingly, they do mention Austin Allsup, as well as Cody Jinks (who’s a native of Ft. Worth), but even that’s in a negative context, giving credit for all of Cody’s recent success to his manager as opposed to Jinks himself or the positive spirit of Texas Music that has uplifted dozens of quality artists over the last few decades.

“I love Cody Jinks’ stuff. I’ve always thought he was great. But he could still be bartending at While Elephant Saloon if the right person didn’t think that way,” says Joey Green. “He hooked up with the right manager up in Nashville, a guy that used to work for Kid Rock, and he knew just what to do with Cody at the right time.”

Yes, Texas Music has an infrastructure problem, and always has. Jan Reid made that point in The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock back in the 70’s. But don’t put that on the artists, or the music. This just proves that these perspectives are not coming from concern, but from elements of jealousy and old man’s syndrome in this Ft. Worth Weekly piece. Only fitting then when the article quotes the recent Steve Earle line about how … “The guys just want to sing about getting fucked up. They’re just doing hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people.” …and then says, “Earle’s sentiments could just as easily apply to today’s Texas Music.”

Are you kidding me? Are you really going to say there’s not much distinguishing Texas Music from Music Row’s pseudo rap EDM bullshit? Have you heard Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Backroad,” which is poised to be the longest-running country music #1 ever, let alone the godawful new single from Walker Hayes “You Broke Up With Me”? I don’t blame the three guys Ft. Worth Weekly rope-a-doped into putting their names behind this article (yet they didn’t have the guts to name their own reporter). It’s another example of an article started with a slanted perspective, and then finding subjects to agree with it as opposed to attempting to ferret out the truth by presenting a wide range of perspectives.

The problem in today’s music scene isn’t just a lack of quality music, it’s a lack of quality journalism covering this music. Just as much as anything, this is what has allowed the crap to rise to the top. I’m sick and tired of seeing these irresponsible articles taking scandalous stances they know will become flash points on social media, then getting passed them by dozens of people saying, “Hey Trig, what do you think of this?”

I think we need to spend more time focusing on the positive, and when we do decide to go negative to weed the garden, name names so as to mitigate collateral damage, and stop making irresponsible blanket statements about entire segments of artists and music just because we’re pissed off by the success of a select few bad seeds. We need surgical strikes against the bad stuff, and holistic support of the good so that the grassroots can choke out the weeds, not douse the entire lawn with weed-be-gone because we’re pissed off.

Nobody “killed” Texas Music. It is alive as it has ever been. Weeds and all. And this is a good thing, because it damn sure beats the alternative coming from Tennessee.

94 Comments

Saying that an artist’s parents bought their way to success is such a loser’s cry, no different than blaming an artist’s manager for their success like was done with Cody Jinks. If you thought your son or daughter could be a big success in music, wouldn’t you support them financially or however you could so they could follow their dreams? Wouldn’t you do that if they showed promise in sports or gymnastics or science or whatever? Taylor Swift’s dad put a bunch of money behind her at the beginning, and guess what, it was a pretty smart investment that paid off in spades. I’m not privy to how much Maren’s parents had to do with her success, but I don’t blame her or them if she did, because obviously it paid off in the long run, regardless of what one thinks about her music.

Agreed 1000%, both to comment above and overall point of the article (regarding music journalism etc)…will be very curious to see how it plays out because I think that good, honest, real music journalism plays an important role to the industry. When labels / radio conglomerates / etc (aka $$$) are the tastemakers then what they push all seems to become pretty fucking tasteless imo…

This is semi off topic, but was listening to the new Micah Schnabel album last night and heard a line in a song that mentions parents clipping out their kids obituaries ‘from the last newspapers to exist’ or ‘on earth’ or something to that affect (ie print media is otw out, which I know isn’t exactly a news flash but got me thinking)…

I have not and will not fuck with facebook etc, but do use spotify, and think that maybe services like it (or some combination) have the potential to be a good outlet for what you’re talking about, They typically have the little ‘media’ blurb about a band and that’s about it info-wise, but I know I’d check it out if there was more info available (ie independent reviews etc) on there…

It’s still in its early days so who knows, and I of course don’t support them fucking over artists but at the same time I think it’s a viable platform for music as well as music journalism if it was tweaked a little bit.

I know this part exists to a degree, but would love it if there was a way to listen to playlists etc from folks on there like yourself (sort of a DJ 2.0 if you will lol) but ime as-is it’s kind of hard to use it in that manner aside from the discover etc features, but maybe am not using it to its full potential.

Last thing / done rambling but have to say I fucking love the Earle quote…keep up the good work appreciate your insight!

Yeah, when you’re too chickenshit to put your name on your article, you lose all credibility. Jerry Jeff and Robert Earl Keen belong on the Mount Rushmore of Texas country, and this hack is a nobody and always will be.

No kidding. Put JJW music aside, he’s one of the founding members of the Texas scene. JJW was more than just a talented songwriter, he was a very smart business man that told Nashville to fuck off early on in his career. JJW did a lot more than sing songs and I don’t think the author of the article has a clue. He had the vision to do it his way and saw that Austin and Texas was where he could do it. Navitve Texan or not, JJW and the Lost Gonzo Band shaped and set the foundation of what we know as “Texas Country”. Yes, you have Guy, and Townes and BJS etc., but JJW was able to make the business part successful and shared it with all the other guys. Texas Country has grown many legs and arms over the years but when you get back to the main root, it’s about songwriting and doing it your way. One look at the members of the Lost Gonzo Band should be enough. There is no Cosmic Cowboy scene without JJW and that’s where a lot of the artist we hear today get their inspiration to do what they do, even outside of Texas.

And the crap about REK? Again, one of the all time greats in all of country music.

And what’s the deal with Joey Green? Haven’t heard his name in years, sounds ass hurt over others success. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, but if he’s in Nashville, I guess he could care less where he got his start.

Love some Robert Earl Keen, saw him perform a few weeks back, too. I hated to give that article a click, but I had to see exactly what they said about Keen before I put my two cents in. After reading it, my suspicions were confirmed that the thesis posed by the article was pure bunk.

Basic summary: Keen was inspired by Jerry Jeff Walker in the ’80s, and did raucous party songs. Article admits that his songs had some songwriting depth, but still blames him for the devolution of the scene into “neanderthal” music.

Right on. The man wrote “Mariano” for Pete’s sake! I’ll add this: what the he’ll is so bad about a party song, as long as it’s clever and well done? Willie wrote “I Gotta Get Drunk,” so I guess he’s to blame, too. What a zero this “writer” is. He/she shouldn’t be allowed to live in Texas.

Yes, there are a few songs that are the exception, but I’ve never thought of Robert Earl Keen as a “party songs” artist. It makes my head want to explode even thinking about reducing his career to such a misnomer.

They’re all like, “The Road Goes On Forever!” As if it was actually a dumb party song instead of, well, what it’s really about. I know REK and the guys really revved it up live in the years after it was recorded, but to me the West Textures recording really captures the true spirit of that song.

REK did write about drinking and having fun. But his ability to craft a song and bend words puts him on such a higher level than writers trying to be cliche.

The road goes on forever isn’t a drinking song, it’s a love story. And agreed, west texture captures that. Dreadful selfish crime can be labeled a drinking song but again, look how he bends the words. Corpus Christi Bay, genius. The Armidillo Jackel, no kinda dancer, feeling good again, shades of grey. I can’t list them all here but REK will go down as one of the best of all time. He’s even kept the same band lineup for most of his career.

If have to say the current state of the texas scene is as strong as we have seen it in years. Put aside a lot of the crap that’s out there, we are seeing a group of young talented artist coming up that are caring the tourch. And these guys and gals are doing it with great songs and lyrics. Hell, we got jack Ingram back and Randy and wade are putting out their best material. RWH, Bruce, Kevin and other veterans are doing their part at showing how it’s done. The tx scene is not dead, if anything, its being revived.

Loved your article. Anytime a writer doesn’t want to put their name on an article is a joke and makes me think they are a fraud. Right now in Texas I think their great artist coming out in record numbers. We have some really good choices. Thanks again for your response.

Agreed. What a ridiculously narrow-minded view. One point: it doesn’t look like the article was written anonymously. The intro was written by Jeff Prince, and the interview portion has the names of each of the geniuses who contributed to the article next to their quotes.

The byline at the top of the article says, “By Ft. Worth Weekly” where normally there would be the name of a reporter.

Yes, the names of the participants in the roundabout discussion are given (and are listed in my article), but the outlet is just represented by “Weekly” in the discussion. Saying that Jeff Prince wrote the introduction seems to be to take away and culpability of what may be said by others, while we have no idea who conducted the interviews, or who chose to pursue the article in the first place.

When newspapers use bylines like this or no bylines at all, the article is considered to be from the whole editorial board. You usually see this method in opinion columns when the newspaper makes some sort of political stand.

Thanks for calling out trite, irresponsible journalism. I live nowhere near Texas but realize it’s rich with musical treasures. Seems like it would make more sense to write articles supporting the likes of Paul Cauthen, James McMurtry or Carolyn Wonderland than cry about some crap that’s on the radio charts. Thanks for saving country music journalism!

Im willing to bet the author is that guy blowing the “Red Dirt music is dead” trumpet. Whatever his name was, got blackballed from the scene, for being way to “real”. “Texas country has lost its roots, causr they don’t like me anymore”.
Cody effin’ Jinks! Really all we need to keep the soul alive, but luckily we have a whole cadre of incredibly talented and devoted artists.

Just…amen to all of this. What an idiotic article all around. Thank you for taking it to task. There is bad Texas music, in that sense it’s no different than Nashville–but the worst Texas music is nothing like the latest piece of shit Sam Hunt has at the top of the charts right now. Honestly, using Steve Earle’s comment to back up their thesis is one of the most idiotic parts of the whole thing.

I don’t wear no Stetson but I’m willing to bet son I’m just a big a Texan as you are.
OK I’m not I’m from Scotland but I’m willing to bet son I’m just as pissed off at this as you are.
Jerry Jeff killed Texas music fuck me lazy journalism blaming a guy from New York that found his spiritual and artistic soul in Austin.Using Steve Earle’s comments completely out of context. Pathetic.There is bad music coming out in every genre but it’s very easy to find the good stuff and in Texas country music it’s simple – just visit this site.

I think the bigger problem here is that music has been devalued to the point of being a background noise or soundtrack to something and that the value of musicians has been reduced to “live stereo equipment” and so an artists’ career is reduced to stereotypes of itself, making any effort to bother researching the artists seem wasteful.

think about it: person who doesn’t listen to Jerry Jeff Walker OR Texas Music scene is tasked to write an opinion piece. rather than do research on music (because who outside of serious music fans actually wants to try new music) it’s easier to cruise through easily accessible information online, get a few key points and some names and try to write some semblance of an intelligent thought for an article which to most journalists is “next paycheck.”

It’s not some great crumbling of our society or some war on art by media.

It’s just that most people don’t care about music.

it’s just the background noise for their lives.

it’s like asking… well, anyone, their opinions on things of zero interest to them. They get paid to write articles, not understand music.

the seventies was a long time ago especially for journalists, a career of mostly pre-millenials, millenials and other assorted people who weren’t alive before the late eighties. why would Jerry Jeff Walker even matter?

I don’t even like Mr Bojangles.

I mean I’ve written papers before that’s all journalism is.

It’s like being paid money to do what college students do. research something, try and make a coherent thought, hope it doesn’t suck.

“I here truth is what songs are for. nobody gives a damn about songs anymore.”

Exactly. Townes came more or less from Texas royalty. One was a President of the Republic of Texas and there’s Van Zandt county of course, and all that oil money. Yet the man chose the rounder’s life and was true to the songwriting craft. I’m not sure who arbitrarily decides who’s credible and who’s not, but to talk such shit about Jerry Jeff is asinine. We owe the existence of Old No.1 in part to his badgering Guy to record.

Didn’t Joey Green write “Rock and Roll Rodeo Clown?” Everything from him really came across as sour grapes.

I saw Jason Eady play this last Sunday night in a small theater that shares a wall with the bar where Dalton Domino and Randall King, and Wade Bowen before them, got their start. Any music that includes them is doing just fine.

Any article bashing Jerry Jeff isn’t worth taking seriously. And who gives a damn if he’s from New York? A lot of people clearly still don’t like “outsiders” singing “their” music, even if it beats the hell out of whatever they’re making themselves.

If it weren’t for Jacky Jack….none of us would even be having this conversation. Yes, he was born and raised in New York, but he got to Texas as fast as he could. Read his book….it’s a fascinating read.

But seriously, all of us in Texas are from somewhere else originally. And we all brought our culture and our customs here….and that’s what makes Texas the inimitable place that it is today.

Actually, I think some content of the article is dead on. A big portion of Texas / Red Dirt music is as formulaic as Bro-Country out of Nashville. Mention a longneck, local beers by name, some river floatin’, booze, drivin’ through the hill country, dancin’ at Gruene Hall, more booze, smoking pot, mentioning another Texas artist, who already is on the top and voila you have your Texas Regional Radio Chart hit. Nothing against booze and drinking songs, but what used to be a single story account (as in “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)” – George Jones) has become a collective booze-up “Gruppenbesäufnis.”

Musically you find everything from Bob Seeger and Bruce Springsteen wannabes to copycats who try to sound like the band who just had a hit or actually came up with their own sound.

Some of it is as predictable as the stuff coming out of Nashville.
And just to make sure, we are not talking about the Texas Music as it happens in Austin, but the “narrowly defined” Texas Music as it is played on the radio – http://www.texasregionalradio.com/top100.asp
I bet that most of you don’t even know half of these kids on this week’s chart. Is there some excellent music; no doubt. Is there some filler material, there sure is a lot. But if you look at the chart, there are only a few that actually have a chance in the musical diverse city like Austin.

May the author(s) have come up with a better story line to present the whole thing, definitely. But this flippant story has some grains of truth.

I agree. I also thought the Americana Story in LA Weekly had some grains of truth as well. That is what makes them so dangerous in my opinion, because it gives them an air of legitimacy while the underlying premise remains unfounded.

Most of the music I’ve been enjoying (almost exclusively discovered via SCM) appears to have Texas roots – sometimes covertly, but mostly overtly!
Perhaps I miss the point, but most of what I like seems to be from Texas, whereas much of what I detest has derived from the Nashville assembly line. Thank goodness for Texas country artists I say.
It seems to be more the antidote and less the poison to me.

I’m not sure answering a perceived hit piece with a rant piece was the most effective approach here. But either way, I found a lot of truth in both articles. Some errors or misstatements or oversights in both, too.

The Music Row machine and the Texas machine are not all that different, other than funding. And it is still possible for a Texas artist to break out in ways that one in Nashville cannot. So there’s hope. But the problems behind the scenes and the concerns about an increasingly formulaic approach are real. For what it’s worth, they contribute to some extent to the lack of solid music journalism that you accurately pointed to, Trig.

Texas Music isn’t dead. It also isn’t defined by a sound. Same as was true with the Outlaw stuff. But there sure is a lot of soundalike music beimg pushed as Texas/Red Dirt these days. Same as there are plenty of people trying to sound like Waylon.

Long as those kinds of posers get the spotlight and airplay, the majority of the tremendous talents in Texas will keep having to play at the corner bar, spending dollars chasing dimes.

There is very little truth in the Ft. Worth Weekly article. Just enough for folks to latch on to and say, “Yeah, there’s crap in the Texas Music scene too…” which people have been saying rightly so for decades. But to label the entire industry “clusterfuck bullshit” is beyond all and a gross aberration of the truth that systematically discounts entire swaths of artists that are doing a good thing and trying to fight back against the bad in Texas music.

There is a boatload of truth in the article,Trig. It’s poorly formatted/delivered and the opening sentence is absolutely incorrect, But the underlying point that the industry has devolved rather than evolved since the JJW days is true. JJW didn’t kill it; he helped spark it. REK didn’t kill it; he helped grow and mature it. Pat Green, though, helped dumb it down and helped make the least common denominator approach just as financially viable in Texas as it has always been on Music Row. The guys who started the Red Dirt thing were generally solid, and still are. The guys who followed them, not so much. But they consolidated the sound, and the genre, and that drives charts and radio and payola. Which is the point the article was aiming for, but clearly missed.

There are decent, honorable promoters out there working their tails off for artists who deserve to be heard. But there are far more effective and influential promoters pushing simple entertainers who play exactly what audiences have been trained to believe they want to hear. That’s exactly how Music Row works, and it’s absolutely happening here in Texas. Has been for a long time now. Sometimes those management groups push a tremendous artist up the ladder, as was alluded to in the article with the Cody Jinks reference. Cody is fantastic. He was also fantastic three, four, five years ago when 12 people knew his name and maybe 3 of them showed up to his gigs. The machine picked him up and any fan of worthwhile music ought to be thrilled that it did. But then they ought to go back to the joints where Cody played to tiny smatterings of people and listen to the artists playing there now. The ones who aren’t getting the backing, but whose songs belong in conversations with any of the great ones from the Armadillo World Headquarter days. Then compare those to what gets airplay generally, and ask… why?

In that sense, the article’s driving point is indeed accurate. The issue is with the failure to make the point clearly.

One final thought – a good number of commenters here on this article as well as across social media have pointed out that they don’t know who any of the three guys interviewed for the FW Weekly article are. And that as such, they don’t believe the opinions voiced have any merit and that the interviewees don’t understand the music scene/industry at all. Well, okay.. but one of those guys interviewed has had songs picked up by Johnny Bush, Don Edwards, Red Stegall, Carlos Santana, and some guy named Garth – who put “The Cowboy Song” in the closing spot on his In Pieces album. I’m no fan of Garth beyond his first two albums, but his impact and stature are undeniable. Anybody who can get songs recorded by acts as diverse as the ones listed here (and there are many, many more but I went for range and effect) has to know a thing or two about the industry and how the machine works. That he didn’t spend time in the interview – or frankly, any time I’ve ever interacted with him personally unless he was specifically asked – talking about what he’s accomplished adds validity to the perspectives he shared here. Some folks would do well to quit assuming that because they haven’t heard of someone, that someone must be a nobody.

There’s a tremendous amount of good in Texas music. There’s a machine that keeps an awful lot of it from ever getting heard. There’s a lot of average ear candy that gets passed off as great by the people who benefit from the machine. Most music fans here don’t seem to recognize that fact, so it’s not surprising that they’d react negatively when it’s called out. It’s a shame that the article in the weekly failed to call it out accurately and directly, and that the article landed on an assessment that it’s mostly all garbage now. But the machine is there. And machines generally run on one kind of fuel. Texas music, from Buddy Holly to Selena, from Waylon to Delbert, from JJW to Leon Bridges, has never run on one kind of fuel. If its fans don’t want it to end up permanently single-tracked, they need to pay attention to articles like this one and do their own digging.

Yeah, but you’d never know it reading this shit article. It’s all well and good that Garth Brooks recorded one of Roy Robinson’s songs, but the fact remains that these guys threw a lot of great artists under the bus here with declaring the entire scene dead. It’s like they’re saying there’s no difference between Jason Boland and Granger Smith.

And nobody was saying anything about his knowledge of the industry as far as I could tell. They were talking about the music. The difference may not be as pronounced now as it once was, but it’s still there.

Just keep in mind these “weekly” publications have now gone into clickbait story mode since printed media has fallen off…..and yes just as soon as I saw them diss JJW i knew they had not done any real research on texas country music

Hey “Trigger” my name is listed at the bottom of the story intro. All three musicians interviewed for the story are named. Speaking of names, the author of The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock is Jan Reid,

Yeah, and all four of you put together ain’t 1/1000th the writer that REK is, or Jerry Jeff or Ray Wylie, for that matter. Those guys ARE the Texas music scene, and you’re irrelevant. Are you going to blame Willie next for writing “I Gotta Get Drunk?” Go back under your rock, you’re a sorry excuse for a Texan. Good luck with that whole clickbait thing

I would recommend you do your research before publishing any article. If you don’t find the information needed, it always helps to ask people who would know. I’m not a journalist or writer, but this would be a pretty good start before publishing an article.

On another note, how about that new Tyler Childers song that was released today. So good. I am sure he is still pinching himself about having Sturgill as backing vocals! Must be pretty unreal, along with banging the album out live in 2 days alongside Sturgill, Miles, etc.

Ray Wylie – scroll up and read my original response. This has nothing to do with the artists you mentioned in your answer. It has to do with the narrowly defined Chart, that calls itself Texas Regional Radio and claims to be the Texas Music Chart per se.

It is not an all inclusive Texas Music Chart because the Chart is not based on what Sun Radio in Austin, KNBT in New Braunfels, the Range or Ranch in the DFW area or any public radio (KUT, KNON etc) would play (high diversity, high quality), but rather narrowly defined Texas “Country” sound. He probably should have stated that clearer.

And even though I think Jeff Prince may have generalized a bit too much, he has some very reasonable concerns, where that sell-out is leading to.

If you want to take on the chart, take on the chart. Be my guest. But nobody is defining Texas Music via the Texas Music Chart except for Ft. Worth Weekly, and maybe the artists that appear on the top of it. I work 70 hrs a week in the industry, cover Texas Music, and chart watch religiously. I can’t tell you the last time I went to the Texas Music chart.

Flame the chart all you want. Not sure why that would be a reason to pronounce Texas music “killed,” and put the blood on the hands of Jerry Jeff Walker, while going out of your way to ignore all of the great stuff coming out of that region at the moment. Again, a modicum of truth to back up an incorrect assertion.

“You are looking at an overhead of $6,000 a month to even be legitimate. You’ve still got to travel and pay a band. You’re trying to keep all of that going and the quality of your gigs up, and nobody wants to pay you. They say, ‘We’ll give you the door.’ … It costs a lot of money to even try to do this.”

The original article was actually complimentary toward Walker — the part about him killing Texas Music was tongue in cheek — whereas this one calls him a drunken buffoon, a shell of himself, and a caricature.

Trigger says there are “inglorious party hearty blowhards that are doing their best to screw it all up for the rest of us” and refers to “mounds of worthless artists and music, and plenty of managers and booking agents to help them perpetrate their filth on the good citizens of Texas.” This is similar to what the original article was saying. Trigger blasts the FW Weekly for not sifting through the “garbage” and finding the best stuff. We do that all the time for all genres of music, focusing on Tarrant County artists. Trigger wonders why the Weekly doesn’t write about the good artists such as Jason Eady from Fort Worth. We did. Two weeks ago.https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/06/07/just-him/

Trigger makes all kinds of suppositions about my article such as I was copying the LA Weekly (I don’t read the LA Weekly and did not see their article) and that I started with a slanted perspective and found rubes to agree with me. Bullshit. I sat down with Amos, Earl and Joey with one pre-prepared question: What is the state of the union in Texas Music these days? We shot the shit for an hour. It was my first time to meet Joey, although I have heard him play live several times over the years. I recorded the conversation, transcribed it, and wrote the intro afterward. Amos, Earl, Joey, and myself are independent thinkers and don’t need crutches or cheerleaders to say what we feel.

The coup de grace is Trigger’s statement that we need to spend more time focusing on the positive. Maybe that’s what an advocacy site like this does. (btw/ a site that names itself Saving Country Music is in effect saying that country is dying, or else why would it need saving?)The Weekly listens to local music and writes what we feel – good and bad — as any good publication should. A site like this that sets itself up as a savior of country music with a mantra of focusing on the positive rather than the truth is basically doing PR work.

Makes little sense. First, if you are going to be “tongue in cheek”, it helps to do it in a little more obvious way….maybe even with a little humor. Overall, the opening few paragraphs of the article jump around so much with no real direction that it’s hard to tell what the point was.

Second, it is obvious that the three guys you assembled have a very limited view of the overall landscape. Sure, they may live and breathe their own little corner of TX music, BUT, that certainly doesn’t mean they are worthy sources to be interviewed on the broader subject of the state of TX music. It is obvious they don’t follow the overall landscape very well.

Finally, your over-arching comments such as “And that’s where the scene remains today –– a large mound of crap with flowers springing from the muck once in a while” without going back to discuss the “flowers” (or, just bringing up with the panel some of the worthy artists mentioned by Trigg and in this comment section to get their thoughts…if they had any) is pretty ridiculous for a magazine that should be focused on promoting great artists. There is no issue with calling out the bad (trigg does it often), but this article would have been much better if you would have both called out the bad, and promoted the good. Especially since it was supposedly a discussion on the totality of today’s Texas music….not just the warts.

Sorry, didn’t read Jeff’s last sentence until now. Trigg focuses on the negative aspects of the current state of “country” music all the time, while also promoting country and country adjacent artists that are worthy of being promoted. It is also pretty funny that you refer to the subject article as “the truth”, you even you admit much of it was tongue-in-cheek AND that it failed to mention several great current day TX artists.

Research, it goes a long way. And I would recommend you widen your interviews on a topic like this in the future. Picking three relatively unknown artist doesn’t help you make your point. RWH has posted on this, ask him his opinion, I’m certain he will give you plenty of great info to write about. This article is nothing more than click bait.

I appreciate and have respect for anyone who takes of their time to write about music because these days it’s a thankless task and sets you up for incredible ridicule, which I’ve been a victim of in the past, many times. Everybody loves to hate on journalists these days. But pulling quotes out of context from this article to say I’m doing the same as you is incredibly transparent, and I think readers are picking up on that. Also, I never said you copied or emulated the L.A. Weekly article, I just said it was another example.

As for, “The coup de grace is Trigger’s statement that we need to spend more time focusing on the positive. Maybe that’s what an advocacy site like this does.”

I would suggest you spend a bit more time poking around this site before you let that opinion dry in the concrete. I’ll put my tongue lashings of music up against anyone’s in all of modern music journalism. But the difference is I always try to be fair, and don’t take my eye off the big picture. If 90% of a given side of music sucks, then it’s our job as journalists to make sure that 10% is given attention too. I agree with some of the things you said in the article, but that doesn’t give you credit for discounting an entire region of artists.

And sorry, if you’re being sarcastic about Jerry Jeff Walker, you better make it more obvious.

All I gotta say is Thank You Jerry Jeff for recording Redneck Mother and “killing Texas music”. It sure put bread on my table for many years. And obviously the writer wasn’t in Texas during the 70’s or he would know that Willie, Waylon among others had a LOT to do with creating the Outlaw, Cosmic Cowboy, Progressive Country scare. Dipshits with computers…..there’s way too many of them 🙂

And yes I agree there is a lot of bad TX Music but not if you know where to look 🙂

And to the guy who said it costs $6,000 a month to be legitimate in TX Music. Thanks for the chuckle. I guess it depends on what your definition of legitimate is. Last I checked all you need is some damn fine songs.
xoxo
Mother

Sorry, born and raised in Fort Worth. Not only did I live in Texas during the 1970s, I came of age in that decade, my teen years, the most formative of all, particularly music wise. Unlike many of my friends back then who were into rock, by favorite artists were Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, Michael Murphey, Steven Fromholz, Rusty Wier, and many others, including your mate Ray Wylie Hubbard. I still appreciate Willie’s, Jerry Jeff’s, and Ray Wylie’s newer stuff, although Murphey lost me with the chuck wagon act.

The original article said Walker “showed up in Austin in the early 1970s at about the same time Willie, Waylon, and the boys were establishing a genre referred to alternately as Outlaw, Cosmic Cowboy, Progressive Country, or just plain Texas Music.”

You are correct about one thing — “dipshits with computers…there’s way to many of them.”

At least most random “dipshits with computers” are forced to stick to internet comment sections, facebook, etc. When you are in the position of being a career journalist who writes articles for a living, there should be a higher bar when it comes to putting out content that is well thought out, fair, and comprehensive. Or, that at least does a halfway decent job of conveying your point……which, given your backtracking, seems to NOT have been that TX music isn’t almost entirely a “pile of crap”.

Your comment makes no sense. So like most mainstream country artist who sing and record songs they completely disagree with just to make money, you do the same when writing articles? With all your so call insight and upbringing, the article you posted was the best that you could do?

Wow Jeff. Keeping it classy I see. Coming from a guy who wrote the complete garbage dump of an article that has caused all of this backlash, that is pretty rich. And, it wasn’t ONLY because of the ridiculous one-sided ignorance of TX music that you displayed. Apparently, it was also due to your inability as a semi-professional writer to convey sarcasm (which is most likely BS, as others have pointed out).

It is also always very annoying and super unprofessional when a writer puts out a complete pile of crap, gets called out for it, and then further pulls their pants down by responding to valid criticisms of said crap articles with cheap, off-topic insults. But, I am sure you already knew that.

I think you make a lot of great points Trigger, and to be fair, the article in question we’re bashing is a load of bullshit, but there are some points I take issue with, and Jeff Prince essentially took the words out of my mouth with this one – why focus more on the positive?

Wouldn’t it be better to give both sides equal representation? I mean, what if someone said this exact same thing about mainstream country and said that Sam Hunt fucked over the mainstream (which he did, okay I’ll stop now) without referencing the good stuff? I know many of you don’t think it exists there, but humor me – one could also say country is alive and well thanks to Jon Pardi, Midland, Eric Church, or whatever to just name a few subjective examples (and none of you better give me shit about how the best of Texas is better than the best of the mainstream. I’d take Turnpike and Jason E. over Jon and Midland as well, but this has got nothing to do with quality, it’s got to do with being fair). We’d all respond by saying that it’s alright to call out the bad shit too. Why don’t we see negative or Americana reviews that often? Is it just because nobody would give a shit because they don’t have the exposure like even some of the lowest level stars at mainstream country do? Or have we just become their cheerleaders? I don’t agree with a lot of what Jeff P. up top said, and but there is one good line – focusing on the truth rather than positive is better, for ALL sides of Country/Americana/whatever.

The reason I gravitate more towards blogs or even Youtube critics over big name outlets is because, agree or disagree, I’m at least getting an honest opinion. I don’t keep coming back here to see every artist get “Two Guns Up”. It’s cool to see that grade, and I’m happy to see we already have more albums attaining that grade as opposed to last year, but if every act got one I’d be suspicious of what to really check out. The albums that get 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 Guns in either direction…those are the ones that have at least slight criticism (and the level of that varies with the grade obviously), so while I check them out, I’m at least happy to know you didn’t hopelessly fawn over them. I haven’t agreed on a single Two Guns Up candidate this year outside of Isbell, but I at least am much more likely to check them out because I know they truly stand out from the pack. To be honest I’d like to see you go deeper with the criticisms sometimes, or even review something not mainstream that would get a guns down grade, but I also understand there’s a lot of other stuff you want to cover. I know we disagree on this but that’s alright. I know this was likely unnecessarily wordy, but I hope what I’m saying is clear.

To be honest, my problem isn’t that these articles from L.A. Weekly and such have “hurt the little guy” so to say. My problem is that they’re just so badly constructed beyond words. I don’t give a shit if they hate Jason Isbell or Sam Outlaw, but at least make it about the music rather than name calling. For this piece, okay, so you think Texas-Country is bullshit, fine. I just covered the new Jon Wolfe album yesterday and if that’s what you’re thinking, then yeah, I’m with you. Hell, even if you think Jason Eady is boring as hell or think that Evan Felker is a terrible vocalist, whatever – opinions are opinions. But for fuck’s sake, at least don’t paint a flawed picture of Jerry Jeff’s legacy. The points made come from asinine points, and using Steve Earle’s recent comments to back it up is not helping the argument. Again, the reason I gravitate towards blogs – honesty, and no clickbait.

1) I imagine its credited to The Staff due to several writers throwing their two cents in, rather than it being written by one or two staff writers. Honestly, it was probably something that came together through whatever the Google Docs or Openbox version of an email chain is in 2017.

2) I would love for someone smarter than I am to explain why the alt-weekly is in so much trouble financially. I have yet to pick one up in various cities where it wasn’t packed with (I’m assuming clients who paid for) ads. I hear editors complain about decreasing numbers of readers; how hard is it to get someone to pick up a paper for free?!?

3) Has there been recent turnover in recent weeks or months at this particular weekly? Because I have found at all of the weeklies that I pitch (freelancer), as soon as a new editor comes on you begin to get hit with emails that ask a variation of, “Can this be made controversial? Is there a controversy with this (whatever) that can be made the main angle?”
I literally told the alt-weekly down in Jacksonville, FL that it might be time for us to take a break from one another when they wanted a feature piece on the Carolina Chocolate Drops to be 95% about them being black, WELL after the members had grown tired of that being there media story.

OH! And I forgot my main point: you don’t actually have to know anything about what you are writing about to write about it! It could have been something as simple as the Music Editor of this weekly reading a post on Reddit saying, “Why does Texas Music suck now?!?” for him to send an email blast out to his writers saying, “Hey, anyone got any thoughts on why Texas music is the absolute worst? I’ll pay you!”

I disagree with the thesis of the Ft. Worth Weekly article as to the status of Texas country music.

I listen to a lot of Texas country music, usually to the exclusion of Nashville country music.

I disagree with the validity of the idiotic quote from Steve Earle as to the status of country music. This guy is the best the author(s) can come up with for an assessment of the subject matter? Really?

And I don’t think that the three interviewees chosen by Jan Reid or Jeff Prince provide an accurate barometer of the state of Texas country music, irrespective of their experience in it.

I don’t have any reason to value their opinions over what I see and hear coming out of Texas, and I have followed Texas country music closely for many years.

It is particularly inaccurate to pick a few of the party tunes of Jerry Jeff and Robert Earl Keen as reflective of their respective bodies of work.

They are both cerebral and gifted songwriters who are known to people who do not know their capabilities only by the handful of drinking songs that get their crowds rowdy.

It’s regrettable that the author or authors have such a limited understanding of Jerry Jeff’s and Robert Earl Keen’s respective songbooks.

I wish that the author(s) had mustered the temerity to interview Jerry Jeff or Robert Earl Keen to get their views as to the status of Texas country music. Or to defend their vast respective contributions to it.

Lastly, this site is not serve as a cheerleader for music that Trig likes.

It is critical of the good, the bad and the ugly of music which purports to be country.

If the name Saving Country Music sounds grandiose to some, then so be it.

I’m biased maybe, but most of the music I love now is either from Texas or Kentucky. One of the amazing things about living in Texas was being able to go to Gruene Hall or anywhere in Austin and hear some amazing legends or some up and coming amazingly talented band. That article was just dead wrong. It makes me mad because I was a music writer in addition to being a publicist when I lived there and I really went out of my way to scope out new bands and spread the word about them. The Texas music scene is one of the things that makes Texas Texas.

FW Weekly should have their head in the sand and ass in the air so that artists/writers/fans of Texas Music can give it a swift kick.

Music is a subjective taste, as a Songwriter myself I’m well aware, but any country fan with am OUNCE of sense can see that there’s no shortage of talent in our genre. Don’t like rowdy drinking songs? Don’t listen. There’s plenty of options to choose from if that’s the case. But bitching about someone else’s success because it’s not your own and throwing newcomers under the bus to appease your ego is just, SAD.

Seemingly missing in all this criticism is none of these artists get anywhere without people willing to pay cover charges, buy merch, CDs, whatever. The fact remains that whatever set of events propel popularity, there are a ton of people who seem perfectly content with crap music. Perhaps is a sign of the times, after all we elected a reality TV guy as POTUS.
Jerry Jeff provided gestation to Ray and Guy and Gary and them. To call it sarcasm after the fact is pretty lame, IMO.
You know, the best part of this drama are the comments where folks offer up examples of artists who don’t suck and for that I’m thankful.
Oh, and Trigger, typo alert, throw v. through. And thanks for what you do.